Dr. Ayberk Ozkirli is a vision neuroscientist with a background in bioengineering (M.Sc. from EPFL, Switzerland) and electrical engineering (B.Sc. from Bilkent University, Turkey). He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at the Laboratory of Psychophysics in EPFL in 2025, under the supervision of Prof. Michael Herzog and Prof. David Pascucci. His PhD thesis was awarded the EPFL Doctoral Program Thesis Distinction Prize and nominated for the Brain-Mind Institute Prize as well as the Lopez-Loreta Prize. His research investigates how spatiotemporal context influences visual perception. His expertise spans neuroimaging, statistics, experimental design, neural data processing, and vision science. He has previously worked with both healthy and clinical populations, investigating visual receptive field properties and their relation to perception and visual perceptual learning using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Selected Publications
[1] Ozkirli, A., et al. Large-scale mega-analysis indicates that serial dependence deteriorates perceptual decision-making. Nature Human Behavior (2025).
[2] Ozkirli, A., et al. Computational complexity as a potential limitation on brain–behaviour mapping. European Journal of Neuroscience (2025).
[3] Ozkirli, A., et al. Failure to replicate a superiority effect in crowding. Nature Communications (2025).
[4] Pascucci, D., Tanrikulu, O.D, Ozkirli, A.,et al. Serial dependence in visual perception: A review. Journal of Vision (2023)
[5] Ensel, S., Uhrig, L., Ozkirli, A., et al. Transient brain activity dynamics discriminate levels of consciousness during anesthesia. Communications Biology (2024).
Selected Conference Talks
[1] Ozkirli, A., et al. Population receptive fields isolate or combine target and flankers in (un) crowding. Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Annual Meeting. Journal of Vision (2021)
[2] Ozkirli, A., et al. Is there a neural common factor for illusions? European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP) Annual Meeting. Perception (2023).
[3] Ozkirli, A. & Pascucci, D. Beyond the ideal observer: internal states of uncertainty modulate sequential biases in perceptual decisions. Vision Sciences Society (VSS) Annual Meeting. Journal of Vision (2023)
